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Mentioned in today’s email: I have some fascinating reporting on Jeff Roe’s latest decision-making, Glenn Youngkin’s ambitions, Mike Pence’s narrowing 2024 lane, Michael Cohen’s attempt at reciprocity, Herschel Walker’s challenges, and much more. As usual, keep the feedback coming by sending a response to this email.

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Lastly, there are a few rumored candidates who don’t fit neatly into any of these lanes: namely Mike Pence, whose vice presidency saw him emerge from a little-known, unlikely-to-be-reelected culture warrior into an indefatigable apologist who dutifully sanitized Trump until the very end, when he refused to dignify his election fraud nonsense; and Glenn Youngkin, who is neither Trump-created nor Trump-inspired nor really Never Trump. Pence and Youngkin are both seemingly folksy, practical conservatives who can talk credibly about the concerns of families, despite the latter being worth hundreds of millions thanks to his roughly 2 percent stake in Carlyle. They’re also both classic “nice guys,” who embrace cultural issues, but not as virulently as DeSantis. And the two are likely going to have to go through each other to have a credible shot in the already-crowded field.

Youngkin, in fact, is a lot more like Pence than it was originally suggested by the media coverage surrounding his Jeff Roe-engineered, C.R.T.-bashing, anti-school closure gubernatorial campaign. Indeed, before he stepped foot in Virginia governor’s mansion, the fleece-wearing former private equity C.E.O. quietly started a more “charismatic” evangelical church in his basement. Youngkin went on to donate $11 million to found and fund his Holy Trinity Church, and a corresponding Christian retreat. (“The church the Governor attends was modeled off a church that he had previously attended in London,” his spokesperson Becca Glover said. “It is more charismatic than a traditional Episcopalian church in the U.S.”)

Perhaps befitting the mindset of a former private equity shark, Youngkin has begun sniffing blood. Richard Cullen, Pence’s lawyer during the Mueller investigation and a partner at McGuireWoods, has joined Youngkin’s administration as counselor to the governor. Macaulay Porter, a former Pence press staffer in the White House, is Youngkin’s press secretary. Pence’s former White House press secretary Devin O’Malley, was Youngkin’s communications director for the gubernatorial campaign, but ultimately turned down a job in the Youngkin administration, and went into the private sector while continuing to advise Pence.

“I think the appeal between both Youngkin and Pence is that they’re both old school politicians: studied, measured, by the book,” said a former Pence staffer. “They aren’t bombastic, showboats, or lightning rods in how they conduct themselves.” This person continued: “In a potential post-Trump era, that’s very appealing to staff. But, more importantly, many are making the calculation that this is what the American voter wants: Less drama, more deliverables.”

Sure, Youngkin may not have been Roe’s only love: The latter publicly flirted with running Trump’s campaign until, as I reported this month, Trump started leaning toward Susie Wiles, who is currently running his political operation. But it’s a fitting political marriage. Roe’s decision to side with Youngkin elevates him as the clearest candidate to beat Trump. It also means that Roe is passing on his former 2016 candidate and pal, Cruz.

After all, Youngkin, who can only serve one term as governor in Virginia, has been breaking records in the state with his fundraising prowess. He just announced that he raised more than $1.5 million in the second quarter of his term. He met with mega-donors in New York this month and spoke at a G.O.P. Convention in Omaha which just so happens to share a media market with Iowa. He’s also making national media appearances on Fox, CBS, Bloomberg and Yahoo Finance. He recently marched in the Richmond “March for Life,” and spoke about his faith at a Liberty University convocation in March. Just as his gubernatorial campaign quickly became a model for Republicans looking to distance themselves from Trump, he is already widely perceived to be capable of running a national campaign that focuses on the family, pressing cultural hot-buttons like anti-masking in schools and regulating sex education, that both appeal to MAGA base and suburban white women who are tired of Trump.

Youngkin, of course, is less than a year into his career as a public servant, and has hardly been tested in any meaningful way other than his surprise triumph—itself an early indication of the backlash forming against Biden. But he has the obvious ambition and financial support network to make his religious edge a powerful tool, especially in defanging Pence, who has been mortally wounded among the MAGA faithful by the Jan. 6 hearings. “Jan. 6 might kill off Pence and not Trump,” mused one Republican operative, working with another candidate on a potential 2024 race. “It signed his death warrant.” Pence was booed and called a “traitor” at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Florida last year.

Marc Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, still a loyalist but also a co-host of a Youngkin fundraiser last year, dismissed the notion that the hearings have burned Pence and ceded the lane to Youngkin. “I don’t think it hurts to be known as a constitutional conservative and somebody who adheres to your oath, even if some would argue that it has negative political consequences,” he told me. Short also cited a National Review article arguing that the hearings are reminding America that Pence is a “mature, principled figure who acted with courage that day.”

“If anything he’s getting more invitations [to speaking engagements, rallies and endorsement opportunities],” said Short.

Pence has been asked to campaign for various candidates across the country, like Georgia Governor Brian Kemp; Rep. Lee Zeldin, who is running for governor of New York; Jennifer Ruth Green, who is running for a congressional seat in Pence’s home state of Indiana; and Karrin Taylor Robson, who is running for governor in Arizona. The last race, of course, pits him against his old boss, a vociferous advocate of Robson’s opponent, Kari Lake.

Pence, who still polls far behind Trump, won’t announce his intentions on Trump’s ever-shrinking timeline. First he’ll wait for his book to come out in early 2023 and then announce his intentions after.

His re-staffing, with support from the National Republican Senatorial Committee, comes amid fears about the state of the campaign, which at times seemed like it was populated by aimless body men staffing a directionless candidate. It might even be worse. Some of those who were courted are instead seeing a pickle that even the best aides can’t fix—a paranoid candidate with no message, who struggles with the simplest questions, like how many children he has. One strategist who interviewed with Walker, who has dissociative personality disorder, called him a “paranoid prima donna,” who doesn’t trust his staff, fears they’re using him, and doesn’t want to campaign with others. Another pollster said that Walker enjoyed a lead over Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, who won the seat after the Kelly Loeffler fiasco, about a year ago when he was still really best known to the electorate as the former UGA Heisman winner who played for the Cowboys and did a gazillion sit-ups per day.

Now, he is continually showing he isn’t ready for prime time. New polls show voters splitting their ballots, choosing Republican incumbent governor Brian Kemp over Stacey Abrams, but switching over to vote for Warnock over Walker. It has Republicans experiencing flashbacks to 2010, when Todd “Legitimate Rape” Akin and Christine “I’m not a Witch” O’Donnell blew the Senate for Republicans. It also has some pointing fingers at N.R.S.C. Chairman Rick Scott over his candidate recruitment, even though Trump, who has known Walker since their USFL days, endorsed him long before he even announced his intention to run, and Mitch McConnell quickly got on board.

When I spoke to Gitcho, she minimized the concerns. “This is typical campaign building and it happens,” she said of the new hires, including herself. “It was a good campaign, it was a lean campaign, but strong in terms of direction.” She continued: “Anyone who underestimates Herschel Walker doesn’t know Herschel Walker, or anything about him. This is a man who has defied the odds his whole life. And this November will be no different and the odds-makers will get pummeled.” She added that he’s campaigning this week with attorney general candidate Tyler Harper, state rep Dave Belton, and state senator Larry Walker next week.

The backstory: In 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to tax fraud for concealing $4 million in unreported income and “unlawful campaign contributions” for hush payments made to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal. This momentarily made him the most famous person on earth and landed him a 3-year sentence that he partially served in prison and then in home-confinement. He’s still on supervised release.

Cohen is currently suing Bill Barr, Trump, and the Justice Department for $20 million claiming that they retaliated against him by sending him back to prison for planning to write a book about Trump. His argument that he’s a political target has only been boosted by Rep. Cohen’s inquiry, who discussed Cohen’s case on the judiciary committee, and then appeared on Cohen’s podcast. He’s not the first one to suggest that Cohen may have been unfairly treated by the Trump administration. Democratic Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Ted Lieu of California also wrote a letter to the Department of Justice’s inspector general on Cohen’s behalf when he was forced to return to jail from home confinement because he wanted to publish his book “Disloyal.”

“I’m fortunate to have several members of congress who are as interested in exposing the truth of the prosecution of me,” Cohen told me on Saturday. “The goal [of the Trump administration] was to destroy my name and my reputation, to label me as a felon, a liar, and a cheat. By doing so, Trump can then point his little finger at me and declare that it had nothing to do with [him],” continued Cohen, who showed me a binder full of his checks that he claimed he deposited in a Capital One bank account to show that he never hid his income. It was all very organized but impossible to fully verify. (In 2020, he tried to sue his accountant for messing up his tax returns.) “It’s basically the conman pulling the con, and deflecting, which is what he’s known to do.”